Sergei Boutenko and Dr. Terry Wahls' stories

As I am embarking on this journey to reverse my autoimmune disease, I thought it would be helpful to further look into how other people have said they have reversed theirs.

I started with Sergei Boutenko, who said he reversed his Type 1 Diabetes through a raw food diet. I checked out his YouTube channel first and watched all the videos on it. Then I emailed him. Here was his general response:

After over 20+ years I’m still diabetes free, healthy and strong. I’ve had a few hiccups along the way, but nothing has ever made me feel worse than eating a standard world diet (I don’t think it’s fair to pick on the US alone in this sector). I can’t recommend any specific diets or practices as I’ve come to realize that people are all different and must experiment on themselves in order to find what works and what doesn’t.  

Here are a few guidelines that have helped me personally:

• Eat lots of fresh whole food (70% of my diet consists of this)
• Eat lots of greens (I try to eat greens with every meal)
• One quart of green smoothie everyday (if you’re worried about the fruit, make them savory): https://youtu.be/G45bHOrZKUM
• Eat a little animal protein (mainly grass-fed meat and eggs from chickens that eat grass and bugs)
• Drink water when I’m thirsty (I believe you can drink too much water and thus should use your thirst as a guide)
• Exercise vigorously for at least 50 minutes per day / six days per week
• Got to sleep by 10:30pm
• Rest from exercise one day per week
• Mandatory food cheat day one day per week (I’ve found that if I scheduled a regular cheat day, I don’t every need to binge on bad food) 

All these practices and more are described in my I Want Abs movie and ebooks: http://iwantabsmovie.com/product/sergeis-i-want-abs-package/ 

I also think incorporating wild edibles is especially beneficial for diabetics as bitter plants are good for the pancreas. I recently uploaded my feature-length wild edibles movie onto YouTube. Check it out: https://youtu.be/NSxjozvB43Q

Then I watched his "I Want Abs" documentary, which was pretty inspiring for getting healthy. So I started drinking a quart of green smoothies per day. The problem with this has been that green smoothies spike my blood sugars too much, even when I only use lower sugar, lower GI fruits. So I think I need to try making savory green smoothies for 2 weeks when I do my detox. Then I can see if my body is able to tolerate a little fruit after that and titrate up.

This week I have been reading a book by Dr. Terry Wahls, who reversed her Multiple Sclerosis (MS) through lifestyle and diet - especially diet. The book is called The Wahls Protocol which outlines her story and what she did to turn her life and her autoimmune disease around. She places a big focus on getting your cells healthy - especially the mitochondria - by eating the right foods to nourish them.

She had 7 years of steady decline, 4 years in a tilt recline wheelchair - she couldn't sit up - despite getting the best therapy from the best people around the country, taking the latest, newest drug. She tried the Paleo diet for 5 years and that was not enough to fix her, supplements were not enough, and Functional Medicine with their supplements was not enough. It was when she did a very intensive diet and lifestyle change (The Wahls Protocol) that in a 1 year period got her back upright, walking around again and doing an 18 mile bike ride with her family. 

In addition to her book, I re-watched her famous TEDx Talk on YouTube called "Minding Your Mitochondria," which I will put below. 

Here are my notes from this talk about her recommendations:

Minding your mitochondria | Dr. Terry Wahls | TEDxIowaCity: https://youtu.be/KLjgBLwH3Wc  

Eat everyday:

• 3 cups green leaves
• 3 cups sulphur rich vegetables (i.e. the cabbage family: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, rutabagas, radishes, collards and kale. The onion family: onions, garlic, leeks, chives, shallots. Mushrooms. Asparagus.)
• 3 cups of bright color - preferably 3 different colors every single day (colors = flavanoids, polyphenols, Retinas, mitochondria and toxin removal. i.e. beets, carrots, red cabbage, peppers, berries, peaches, oranges)

Eat once a week:

• Grass fed meat (i.e. wild fish = omega 3 fatty acids = myelin and straight teeth. Salmon and herring, grassfed meat)
• Organ meat (concentrated sources of vitamins, minerals, coenzyme Q. Once a week.)
• Seaweed (= rich source of iodine. Eat at least once a week)

Eating this way helped her go from being in a tilt recline wheelchair to using a cane to walking normally again.

I also watched a couple videos on Terry Wahls' YouTube channel about her perspective on a number of things, and took some notes.

What are her favorite foods?

• Huge kale salads (raw)
• Kale chips
• Bacon and greens (cooked)
• Roasted garlic
• Fruit (strawberries, raspberries, kiwis) with full fat coconut milk
• Create an edible landscape 

How to begin to eliminate toxins?

• Eat the Wahls diet to maximize nutrition
• Eat organic 
• Use organic personal care products 

Why do I need to be in ketosis?

• You shift your metabolism from sugar burning to fat burning. This dramatically lowers the risk of cancer. Good benefits for brains.
• What fuel the mitochondria in your cells are using. Sugar or fat. They generate energy for the cell.
• If you go into ketosis too quickly you can get the keto flu: nausea, vomiting, body aches. Ease into it over 2-4 weeks. Your liver makes the ketone bodies from the fat that you consume. Coconut oil, coconut milk, and medium chain triglyceride oil are the best forms of fat for this. When first monitoring for ketones you can use ketone strips. After 2-3 months you won't be spilling as much ketones in the urine. She went very vigorously in ketosis for 18 months. Now when she is home she goes into ketosis, when she travels she goes higher carb Paleo type diet. Now she has been adding some low glycemic fruits in the summer months, like berries. You can eat winter squash raw. You are really feeding the 100 trillion bacteria living in your bowels (gut bacteria). Traditional societies have 100-150 grams of fiber per day. If you're having any starchy vegetable (i.e. carrots, beets, squash), have it raw.
• A healing crisis when you are detoxifying compounds, you want to rapidly get them into the phase 2 step so they aren't harmful to you. If you have a slower problem in phase 2 than phase 1 you can go through more pain. Then you are detoxing too quickly. Think about what you are taking for phase 1 and phase 2 support. Some people don't do well with meat. Others don't do well with grains/legumes. 6-12 ounces of meat/day 

What do I eat for breakfast?

• Coconut milk and berry or coconut milk and green smoothie. Some protein leftover from the night before (i.e. steak, liver pate, chicken, pickled herring). Smoothie plus a rich supply of protein.

Thankfully there are a lot of commonalities between Dr. Wahls' recommendations and Sergei's. These commonalities are the things I will be striving to do :-)